BOI-promoted land ownership in 2026: the e-Land rules for offices and worker housing under Notification Por. 9/2568

Can a foreign-owned hotel or resort company that holds BOI investment promotion actually own the land it operates on? Only for a narrow slice of it — its own office and its operational-level staff housing, not the guest-facing part of the business. That land-ownership right runs through Section 27 of the Investment Promotion Act and a stack of BOI notifications, and the newest layer, Notification Por. 9/2568, digitised the application process and tightened the worker-housing rules from 2026 onward.

The legal basis: a two-notification stack

BOI Notification No. 16/2567 (issued 1 November 2024, gazetted 9 December 2024) is the base rule: a foreign juristic person holding BOI promotion, with paid-up registered capital of at least ฿50 million, may own land for an office of up to 5 rai (~8,000 m²) and for operational-level worker housing of up to 20 rai (~32,000 m²), whether on the same site as the promoted business or a separate plot. A subordinate notification, Por. 8/2567 (4 November 2024), set out the specific conditions for the worker-housing allowance.

What Por. 9/2568 changed

Notification Por. 9/2568 was issued 18 July 2025 and gazetted 6 January 2026, applying to applications submitted from its issue date onward. Two things changed. First, applications now go through BOI's e-Land system rather than a paper filing — submit documents online, and if BOI flags something incomplete, the applicant has 7 business days to correct or supplement it before the file is automatically rejected. Second, the definition of qualifying worker housing tightened: it must be a purpose-built structure exclusively for operational-level (unskilled) workers, not a condominium unit, a detached house, a shophouse, or part of a land-subdivision project. If the housing sits on a separate plot from the main business, it must be within roughly 10 km of the operational site along a public road, with room capacity sized to the actual workforce and standard facilities such as parking, a first-aid room and a kitchen.

What this route does not cover

• No guest accommodation. Rooms, villas or any structure a resort or hotel rents to paying guests fall outside this land-ownership allowance entirely — it exists for the company's own operational footprint, not its revenue-generating assets.
• No personal residence for the owner or investors. The allowance is for the promoted company's operational-level worker housing, not a home for a director, shareholder or their family.
• Not a route to personal land ownership for a foreign individual. This right belongs to the BOI-promoted juristic person, not to a person — it disappears if the promotion status lapses or the company is dissolved, and it doesn't substitute for the routes covered in A Thai company for property (49/51) or The ฿40 million investment route, which solve a different problem.

Who this actually matters to on Phangan

This is a narrow, business-linked provision, not a general property-buying tool. It matters mainly to a foreign investor who already holds — or is applying for — BOI promotion for a qualifying hospitality or tourism-related business (a category some resort and hotel developments fall into) and wants to own, rather than lease, the land under the company's back-of-house office and staff quarters. For everyone else — anyone buying a villa or land for their own use, or structuring a rental business — this notification is not the relevant mechanism; see Buying a villa held by a Thai company and Short-term rental crackdown for the rules that actually govern most Phangan resort and rental operations.

The takeaway: BOI-promoted land ownership got easier to file for in 2026 but stricter in what qualifies as worker housing. If you hold or are pursuing BOI promotion for a Phangan hospitality business, budget for the ฿50 million capital floor and the e-Land process — but don't mistake this narrow office-and-staff-housing allowance for a way to own the land under your guest rooms.